Tough yet principled New York detective (Frank Sinatra) has his hands full with a failing marriage, the high-profile murder of a homosexual, a questionable suicide, and his own career goals. Supporting cast includes Robert Duval as a bigoted cop, Lee Remick as the detective's wandering wife, and Jacqueline Bisset as a woman who believes her husband's death has been whitewashed by the cops. Bleak, but with much to appreciate if not precisely enjoy: a convoluted plot that is nevertheless well-constructed, its dark and moody atmosphere, and fine performances. Based on the novel by Roderick Thorp, the sequel to which, Nothing Lasts Forever, was also made into a standalone film -- Die Hard.
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Tough yet principled New York detective (Frank Sinatra) has his hands full with a failing marriage, the high-profile murder of a homosexual, a questionable suicide, and his own career goals. Supporting cast includes Robert Duval as a bigoted cop, Lee Remick as the detective's wandering wife, and Jacqueline Bisset as a woman who believes her husband's death has been whitewashed by the cops. Bleak, but with much to appreciate if not precisely enjoy: a convoluted plot that is nevertheless well-constructed, its dark and moody atmosphere, and fine performances. Based on the novel by Roderick Thorp, the sequel to which, Nothing Lasts Forever, was also made into a standalone film -- Die Hard.
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++ Some years after her alcoholic father dies, Sonny Blake (Rose McGowan), a psychologist with her own radio talk show, moves back into the family home on suburban Rosewood Lane. Her neighbors, she soon discovers, live in fear of the teenage lad who delivers their papers. With good reason: this kid isn't just psychotic, he's probably supernatural. And now he's after Sonny. So -- demon paperboy. Whatever possibilities were to be mined from the idea of a kid who holds an entire neighborhood hostage to his own evil, Salva, who wrote and directed, tosses out like yesterday's news. All he's interested in is how far it's possible to stretch the viewer's credulity. The story is illogical, the characters are doltish, and it all leads exactly nowhere. Yet the trailer's probably not bad. Out of context, some of the scenes have the edge of a decent thriller. But that pesky script keeps getting in the way. Like when Sonny gets tired of having her house broken into and decides to do something about it, and buys a cat. Meow. Or when she calls the cops and a couple of lunkheads with badges show up. Or when a major character vanishes and we're supposed to pretend he never existed. You know, like that. Salva has talent, just not writing talent. +++1/2 Truly horrific tale of one man's unintentional sojourn with an amoral vivisectionist who carries out his terrible experiments far from the public eye on a small island populated by his bizarre, human-like creations. Vivisection, by the way, is surgical experimentation on live animals; Wells doesn't get into the medical details, fortunately, yet manages in other ways to convey the enormity of Moreau's "House of Pain." Meanwhile, as Moreau concedes and our narrator discovers, the good doctor has so far failed to make his alterations stick, and the creatures he creates soon begin to forget their human qualites and revert to their more primitive natures. Wells' message, that mankind isn't so far removed from his animal past as he might think, is confusing and somewhat self-contradictory, but he doesn't spend a lot of time on it, either. This is a full-frontal assault on our civilized sensibilities, and it is reaching, as critics and literary historians have done, to classify it as science fiction; it is horror through and through. It isn't pleasant, but it's worth reading. Adapted several times for film, most notably in 1932 (as Island of Lost Souls), but also, among others, in 1977 and again in 1996. ++ Mostly embarrassing horror comedy with James Lorinz as ex-medical student Jeffrey Franken, whose discovery of a new form of crack that blows users' bodies to pieces comes in handy when his fiancée is torn to bits by a lawnmower. Using parts of dead, drug-using hookers to rebuild her, however, has unintended consequences. Themeless and underwritten, but with a few funny lines, and, thankfully, despite all the exploding bodies, very little blood. Penthouse Pet Patty Mullen plays Franken's betrothed. Louise Lasser has a small part as his mother. Smart, it ain't. +++++ Stylish, top-notch thriller, adapted from Thomas Harris' Red Dragon, about a serial killer who murders whole families and the FBI profiler lured out of retirement to catch him. Beautifully directed, and also written, by Mann, who surpasses the novel in several key aspects, most notably by dumping Harris' trick ending and replacing it with an honest climax, while maintaining the suspense and breathless pacing of the book. William Petersen, as Agent Graham, grounds the film nicely, and Tom Noonan makes a formidable and menacing psycho. Brian Cox, in a role later made enormously famous by Anthony Hopkins, plays Hannibal "Lecktor," a captive cannibal with links to the killer; he's not as flashy as Hopkins, but very effective in his own right. Had to be "reappraised" by critics to get the credit it deserves. ++ Another book that isn't nearly as good as the hook. Teenage girl receives note that threatens to expose -- or, worse, to physically make her pay for -- the very serious crime she and three of her friends committed the previous summer. The crime is horrible enough, but the kids' coping strategies are so superficial and routine that one finds oneself almost agreeing with their tormentor -- that these spoiled brats could benefit from a hard dose of reality: they are all more interested in their love lives than what they did that terrible night. If this doesn't quite happen, it is only because the characters aren't compelling enough to provoke much of an emotional reaction either way. With less action than you might expect and a whole lot more lax dialogue than you could ever want. A quick read, though. Revised and reissued in 2010 in order (a) to update the technology and (b) to squelch any sense of history a young reader might have possibly been exposed to. Made into a film in 1997 starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar. ++++ Democratic populist from California is persuaded to run for the United States Senate on the idea that because he can't possibly win, he can say whatever he wants. Then he begins rising in the polls. Written by Jeremy Larner, a former speechwriter for Eugene McCarthy, this wry, realistic portrait of high-stakes political campaigning follows the inexperienced candidate (Robert Redford) and his savvy campaign manager (Peter Boyle) from announcement to election, and offers a behind-the-scenes (and decidedly adult) look at everything in between, things like campaign stops, television advertising, and a debate. Mentions without really examining a number of key issues, which keeps the film from ever becoming terribly partisan. Larner's script, by the way, won the Academy Award for 1972. ++ Sequel starts well, picking up right where the 1978 original left off, then deteriorates into typical slasher fare as babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) gets taken to the local hospital where Michael Myers kills everyone in sight in order to get to her. Supporting characters (including the always-unpleasant Leo Rossi as a crude ambulance driver and Lance Guest as his good-guy paramedic partner with inexplicable feelings for Laurie) add nothing but the body parts Michael requires to make each killing unique. John Carpenter evidently added more gore to Rosenthal's film in post-production. He should have added more imagination to his and Debra Hill's script. Also starring Donald Pleasance. +++ Novelization of the original film, credited to Lucas but actually ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster. Foster adds nothing of significance to the film, but doesn’t tinker with the story, characters, or dialogue either, making this an enjoyable, if clearly inferior, alternative. In a far-off galaxy, farmboy Luke Skywalker is swept up in a rebellion against an evil empire led by the fearsome Darth Vader. His allies — mystical Obi Wan Kenobi, tough Princess Leia, cynical Han Solo and Chewbacca, and the robots See Threepio and Artoo Detoo — provide variety and humor in a clockwork plot that delivers lots of action and excitement. A good book in the dicey category of novelizations. ++1/2 Demi Moore plays a pregnant woman who finds a prophecy in the room she's just rented to a strangely quiet and intense man that links her unborn child with the Biblical apocalypse. She is not amused. It might amuse the audience, though, the way this everywoman turns into a major snoop at the drop of a hat, or, later, how she is able to gain entry to a state execution simply by walking through an unlocked door. The movie starts well enough, with mysterious and portentous happenings around the world, yet just when it should have turned inward -- to Moore and her husband Michael Biehn, who are both having to deal with Moore's previous miscarriages and her difficulty keeping the faith for this pregnancy -- it jumps the track and turns Moore's private apocalypse into a war between Christ and the meanie who smacked him one before his death 2,000 years ago. But this is a well-acted film, so it is, at least, watchable throughout -- even if it plays awfully fast and loose with Christian theology. "How can you take seriously a story in which only Demi Moore stands between us and the end of the world -- and her only ally is Hebrew scholar Avi (Manny Jacobs), who looks and talks like a teen-aged Woody Allen...?" - Michael Wilmington, The Los Angeles Times, April 01, 1988 "Basically 'The Seventh Sign' is the Book of Revelation played out as a paranoid yuppie fantasy -- 'She's Having a Baby' crossed with 'The Omen.' We could call it 'She's Having Rosemary's Baby.'" - Hal Hinson, The Washington Post, April 01, 1988 |
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